


Tom: Worth of This Man

by MistressPandora



Series: Knotty John and His Men [3]
Category: Lord John Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: Aftercare, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Bottom!Lord John, Consensual But Not Safe Or Sane, Definitely not really sane, Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Employer/Employee relationship, Explicit Sexual Content, Heavy Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Impact Play, M/M, Masochism, Okay mostly mostly safe, Past Lord John Grey/Percy Wainwright, Riding Crops, Rigger!Tom Byrd, Rope Bondage, Shibari, Spanking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-20
Updated: 2020-12-20
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:22:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28200816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MistressPandora/pseuds/MistressPandora
Summary: Lord John Grey and Tom Byrd have an agreement, which Grey has broken. He was supposed to go to Tom when he slipped back into that dark place; instead he went back to Lavender House.
Relationships: Tom Byrd/Lord John Grey
Series: Knotty John and His Men [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2043652
Comments: 12
Kudos: 22
Collections: Bad Things Happen, Lord John Grey Cocoa and Kink 2020





	Tom: Worth of This Man

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [Lord John Grey Reading Nook](https://lordjohngreyreadingnook.tumblr.com) Cocoa and Kink fic event.
> 
> This story fills my Bad Things Happen Bingo square **You Can Scream All You Want**

Tom Byrd tied the most beautiful knots. Lord John’s valet had acquired an array of whimsically dyed ropes and cords in cotton, hemp, a few thin lengths little more than string made of silk, and one long, wretched jute rope that only came out when Tom had a point to make.

Tom, it would seem, had a point to make this evening.

Eventually, Grey knew that Tom would make that point explicitly clear. But for now he was left to ponder his questionable life choices with that horrible jute rope clawing against his bare arms and torso. 

Grey's forearms were bound together behind his back, then tied to his body. Tom had tied the knots securely without being too tight. Snug, with a tiny bit of slack. It was worse that way, than if it had been very tight. The more it moved, the more it scratched and irritated his flesh, drawing Grey's attention to this discomfort. It made him acutely aware of his nakedness, kneeling here on a cushion by the fire in his own rooms. _Reflection time_ , Tom had called it, confiscating both Grey's pocket watch from his waistcoat and the small clock from the mantle and carrying them from the room so the ticking and chiming wouldn't drive Grey mad.

Tom hadn't come back yet. But it had only been… Grey stopped himself turning to the missing clock in favor of the window. The shades were drawn and it was night anyway. The only method Grey had at his disposal for reckoning time was the discomfort of his own body. Well, Tom hadn't been gone long enough for Grey to grow sore, though this damn rope was an absolute menace. Grey twisted his body, flexed his shoulders, trying to get some relief from the rough jute, but of course only made it worse. He frowned and groaned, growing rather annoyed.

"You're lucky I didn't wrap that around your prick, Me Lord," Tom said, coming back into the room with his hands full and shutting the door behind him with his hip. "I suggest you sit still, because I may yet." Grey's valet tossed a cloth bundle on the table with a thud and crossed his arms over his narrow chest.

Oh, so it was one of _those_ points. Grey managed to rein in his fidgeting, barely. He waited as patiently as he could for Tom to start explaining what the bloody hell John had done to earn the jute. Which was to say, not very patiently at all. 

Grey couldn't take it anymore. "Aren't you going to scold me now?"

Tom frowned and lowered himself into the chair facing Grey. "Is there some reason I should?"

Irritation fizzled through Grey, igniting whatever remained of the drink still sludging through his veins. He tried to put the pieces of the preceding evening together, but they kept floating out of reach. Lavender House? That's where he'd gone… had Tom found him there? It had happened before. Grey had fallen into a bottle, ended up at a molly house, and come to with Tom Byrd scowling over him with worry shadowing his eyes.

“Hal sent you after me,” Grey said. He’d stopped slurring his words at least, probably because… ah yes, Tom had poured water down his throat in the carriage from Barbican Street.

“His Grace is worried about you, Me Lord, true enough.” Tom leaned forward in his seat, resting his elbows on his knees. From his perch, he sat higher than Grey. Sometime in the last several months, Tom had acquired quite the backbone. He deferred to Grey in his professional capacity, of course, but here, in the dark recesses of Grey’s rooms, Tom only called him _Me Lord_ out of habit.

Grey scoffed. “Hal is only concerned about the family name. He worries about me as far as it affects his own reputation.” A coarse splinter of jute came loose and jabbed into the irritated flesh on the inside of his forearm, and John flinched, screwing his eyes shut against the invasion.

“Far be it from me to tell you the duke’s mind on such things. You know it better than I do. But that’s not really the point, is it?”

Narrowing his eyes, Grey tried to ignore the itching abrasion. He’d dig at his arms with a wire brush as soon as Tom took the goddamn rope off. He tried to get a finger under the ropes to scratch the annoyance, but it was no use. Tom had him thoroughly helpless. With a huff, Grey glared up at Tom. “Then what is the point, Tom?” 

Tom’s voice was barely more than a whisper, confident and intimate. Rather sad, perhaps. “The point, John, is our agreement.”

That brought Grey’s pouting to a grinding halt, and he stared at the rug between them. _Our agreement._ The weeks immediately after Percy’s “death”—and subsequent flight to Rome—had passed with sufficient distraction that Grey had believed himself to be no longer affected by the events that had led to his lover's arrest and condemnation. But when the distractions and his convalescence had given way to orders that he should have no orders and board for the time being in London, it had begun to set in. When the vividness of Stephan von Namzten’s wild melancholy had faded from his awareness, and the rage of that last altercation with Jamie Fraser were but distant memories, Grey had felt himself start to go. He’d begun drinking brandy with his tea. Then his breakfast. 

Tom had found him like that one morning, the sun not yet high, and Grey nearly a bottle gone. He had forgotten that Tom, of course, had the spare key to his rooms. He’d found John pressed into a corner, far from the cold hearth, shivering and weeping, and sank to the floor next to him and let him cry. 

_Might I help, Me Lord?_ Tom had asked. _Let’s get you up._ Grey had flown into a rage, and Tom, concerned for his employer’s safety, had restrained him. Grey had been too weak and too drunk to fight him.

That was the first time Tom had tied him up.

Later, when Grey was again lucid and more sedate, they had talked about it. _I’ll watch over you, Me Lord. And when it happens again, because I expect it shall, I’ll be here._ _Will you trust me, if it happens again? Trust me to take care of you? To keep you safe?_

Grey had agreed. And thus began their arrangement. Grey was to go to Tom when he felt the madness creeping in, and Tom would find creative ways to satisfy whatever self-destructive urges were overtaking him. 

But this time he hadn’t. This time, Grey had gone directly to the drink, then to the molly house. He’d violated the agreement. But Tom hadn’t. Tom had kept his promise to keep Grey safe, to take care of him when he couldn’t—or wouldn’t—take care of himself.

Tears burnt Grey’s eyes, one hot droplet rolling down his cheek. “I’m sorry, Tom.”

Tom knelt on the floor in front of Grey then, held his chin in his thin fingers. Grey kept his eyes closed, unwilling to face his friend. “John,” Tom said softly. It took a very long time for Grey to open his eyes and meet his gaze. “You don’t have to apologize to me for hurting.” Tom knew everything, Grey thought. 

But of course he did. Tom was quick-witted, brilliant, loyal, and ever-present. There was not a thing that Grey could have kept secret from his valet, not for long. And when Grey looked into his eyes, there was no judgement there, no pity, no shame, nor wretched sympathy. Just understanding and compassion and—God, dare he think it—something like love. 

Weakness overcame Grey, and he turned into Tom’s touch, nuzzled his cheek against his hand. “Tom,” he whispered. Grey was pleading, begging, but he had no idea what he begged for.

Tom smoothed Grey’s wild, loose hair back from his face. He untied his ribbon and combed his fingers through it. “What were you looking for?” 

Words were difficult to find. Grey’s mind was awash with everything but words, yet so empty of substance that the void ached. “To feel… alive, I suppose.”

“That man was going to hurt you.” 

Tom was being literal. The man he’d found Grey with had a particular taste for injuring his partners. Grey didn’t know his name, and he’d had a small collection of blades and other cruel implements. John’s thigh sported a blister from where the man had burnt him with a knife held in the fire. Tom had bloodied the man’s nose and held a pistol trained on the bastard until he’d gotten John dressed and bundled into the waiting carriage. 

“I know,” Grey whispered. “I—”

“Stop right there.” Tom’s tone was still kind but firm now, and it left Grey silent, chewing on the inside of his cheek. Tom sighed and pet Grey’s face. “You know what happened to him wasn’t your fault, don’t you?” He meant Percy, of course. “Perhaps it’s not my place to say it because I wasn’t there.” Tom went on combing and stroking Grey’s hair, and John drifted. “I want to help. Will you let me?”

The kindness in Tom’s demeanor made Grey’s bones ache. He didn’t deserve him, John thought. He didn’t deserve this sweet young man who had blustered his way into his life and lately, into his heart. Yet, here Tom was, literally on his knees, asking for nothing more than permission to care for him. 

John nodded. "Yes, please." He felt instant relief to say it, to surrender this to Tom, entrust all the mundane and impossible decisions to him until this episode passed.

Tom held Grey’s chin again, and gave him a serious, level stare. “And I’m going to make sure you remember our agreement next time you get it into your head to run off and do something foolish. Do you understand, Me Lord?”

Grey nodded. "Thank you, Tom." He straightened his back so Tom could untie him, but he made to move to do so. “Aren’t you going to take this off?”

Tom said nothing in reply, but his face went impassive, stern, and Grey began to hope that Tom understood what it was, exactly, that he had gone looking for in Lavender House. If Grey told him, laid it out in black and white, Tom would do it. They’d talked about it, one of those odd, late nights that they drank together and bared their souls. Tom had said in no uncertain terms that he was willing and able to do anything that John needed or wanted, all he had to do was ask. At Tom’s offer, this had included sex as well. In a moment of clarity, Grey saw that not only was Tom willing, but he _wanted_ to. He’d tried to explain his reasoning as, _At least you’ll be safe if you’re with me._ Bless Tom. Grey had never told him what it was like after Hector, that this intermittent descent into dark madness felt so similar. He probably knew.

But Grey couldn’t ask for this. How could he? How could he admit to Tom that he’d gone looking for someone to make it hurt. Because if it hurt then at least Grey knew he wasn’t dead yet. 

He should never have underestimated the perceptiveness of his valet. “On your feet, Me Lord.” Tom grabbed John under his arms and hauled him up, giving Grey a moment to be sure of his footing. Apparently he had been kneeling for quite a while after all, and John swayed. Tom had a firm grip on his shoulders though, and he wasn’t in danger of falling. 

“I know that you know the risk you put yourself in, don’t you?” Tom asked. It was not a question that Grey was meant to answer. “The risk to your family, the duke’s opinion on the matter be damned. And none of it matters, does it, Me Lord? It doesn’t matter that the duchess had to convince your brother not to go after you himself. It doesn’t matter that I was propositioned by _three_ men while I figured out where you were.”

Grey listened to Tom’s tirade, his point apparently on the horizon. He bit down on the inside of his cheek. It absolutely _did_ matter what happened to Tom because of him. Hal could go directly to the devil, the bastard. But Tom… 

"I'm sorry, Tom," he said again.

"Are you?” Tom left Grey to stand there naked on the carpet and cleaned off the table. Candles and flowers he moved to the mantle, the bundle he’d brought left on a chair close at hand. “I meant it when I said you don’t have to apologize for hurting. You certainly don’t need to apologize for annoying His Grace—at least not to me. And you don’t have to apologize to me for the trouble of collecting you.” 

Tom finished clearing off the table and beckoned Grey closer. Holding Grey’s face in both of his hands, Tom kissed him on the mouth. A brief kiss, his lips parted just enough to distinguish it from the way a particularly demonstrative man might kiss a good friend. When he pulled away, he stared directly into Grey’s eyes. “You are not an inconvenience, John. Caring for you, as it were, is not an imposition. I’m honored to do it.”

Grey had nothing to say to that, so he kept his mouth shut.

Something shifted in Tom’s posture again, the tender affection bolstered by that strong backbone of his, his entire manner turning firm and confident. He might have made an adequate lieutenant, even captain, given the opportunity. “Now. We are going to get whatever this craving is out of your system so as you can think straight again.”

“Thank you, Tom.” Grey barely recognized his own voice. He let himself be steered to the table, and Tom bent him over it. The wood was cold against his bare chest, and Grey whimpered. He tried to raise back up, but Tom’s hand on the center of his back pressed him down again.

“Stay put, please,” Tom said. And then his hand was gone from Grey’s back and he watched Tom open the bundle. Inside was a selection of Tom’s ropes, a riding crop, a bottle of oil, and a pair of rather wicked-looking shears. He selected two small coils of red hemp rope and unwound these, using them to bind Grey’s ankle to one leg of the table, then the other. He wrapped the ropes around and around his ankles and secured them well. Grey was bent fully over the table, the edge of it digging against the base of his prick. The table was just long enough to support most of his torso, his head and neck all that hung over the side. "Now, will you keep still? Or do you need more rope?'

"I'll be still," John said. Try as he might, he could not stop fidgeting against the irritating jute.

Tom snorted. "Sure you will, Me Lord.” He was already uncoiling a length of yellow cotton rope and threading the bight between Grey’s arms and body so that the rope ran over his back and under his arms, avoiding strain on his shoulders. It was sweet, really. Tom tied the rope around Grey’s body to the table, preventing him from raising up, kept him at a right angle. He knew this because he tested it. Once, twice, three times. Tom laid his hand on Grey’s back again, and he settled, relaxed as much as he could with the jute still devilling him.

Skimming his hand from Grey’s back to his shoulder, Tom crouched in front of him at his eye-level. “Tell me if you need to stop. Do you promise?”

Grey’s mouth was suddenly dry and something in the way Tom was looking at him made his prick begin to grow hard. He nodded. “Yes, Tom.” It came out little more than a croak. He couldn’t think of a single reason to ask Tom to stop whatever he had planned.

Tom brushed his thumb over Grey’s lips. “The house is empty. You can scream all you want, John. No one will hear but me. You’re safe.” And then Tom was out of sight, save for one slender hand that picked up the crop from the chair.

The first strike of the crop was startling and Grey hissed, glad for the ropes keeping him from pitching forward over the table. “Do I have your attention?” Tom asked.

“Yes,” Grey said, breathless.

“Good,” came Tom’s voice from behind him. The crop hit him again, the pain white and shocking, spreading across his arse. Grey bit down on a yelp. “This is not a punishment. Do you understand?”

Grey did not immediately answer, and Tom swatted him again. He let the yelp pass his lips this time. “Y—yes,” he answered, voice wavering.

“I don’t think you do, John.” Tom swung the crop again. Just the loud crack of leather against flesh would have been sufficient to make Grey wince. As it was _his_ flesh suffering the audible abuse, he let out a shout of pain. “The problem with you falling into a bottle and rolling into a molly house is not that it’s troublesome to His Grace. And it’s not that I have to come and collect you. The _problem_ —” Tom emphasized this word with a swift strike of the riding crop and John cried out, tears burning his eyes. “The problem, Me Lord, is that, in so doing, you show so little regard for yourself. For your own safety.” _Crack._ “For your own good name.” _Crack._ Grey’s face was wet now, throat already growing raw from letting out the shouts that he’d been shoving down for days. “You deserve to be here. And I don’t mean on this table.” _Crack,_ but it was gentler. Slightly. “You’re not bad for being alive and at home while Mr. Wainwright isn’t.” _Crack._

Grey cried out. The crop was acutely painful of course, but when he screamed it wasn’t physical pain he was ventilating. 

Tom paused, then hit him again. Sweat poured from Grey’s body, irritating the fresh burn on his thigh, the area feeling simultaneously burning hot and freezing cold. John’s eyes were squeezed shut now, and he sobbed openly, the brief shame for his tears fading quickly into the background. It was like lifting the trembling lid of a boiling pot and letting out the steam that grew too thick. All this time he’d thought this anguish was as a carefully smothered fire that would draft back on himself if he let any air in. But it wasn’t. 

Tom brought the crop against his arse again, hard, once, twice, thrice. He kept speaking to him all through it, but Tom’s words came to Grey detached, disembodied. His exact words were incomprehensible and irrelevant, but they still found their way past Grey’s armor of spirits, sorrow, and pain, worming their way directly into his mind.

_You’ve not done anything wrong._

_You still deserve to be cared for._

_I love you._

_And you can love you too._

Grey lost count of how many times Tom hit him after seven. It didn’t matter, the sting of each blow was an unbroken blur of physical pain. It was freedom, an avenue to crack the hard shell he’d built for himself, to let that steam escape before it boiled over and wreaked utter havoc on everyone and everything around him. 

John wasn’t _crying_ , nor did he _sob_. He _wailed_. The discomfort of the jute had fallen away. He melted into the table, boneless. Unable and unwilling to fight the ropes, to thrash. He went pliant and surrendered to Tom’s firm hand.

The blows from the crop stopped, and for a long moment Grey wept over the edge of the table, waiting for them to start again. But then Tom’s hand was on the small of his back, a slick finger carefully pushing into John’s entrance. Grey froze, tense. But Tom stroked his back and hips, shushing him gently, urging him to relax and submit. With a little coaxing, Grey did, and Tom slid in a second finger. 

Grey barely felt the specific movements of Tom’s fingers inside of him, couldn’t make his tear-soaked mind track it. But it was Tom’s long fingers opening him up, Tom’s graceful hand on his back. Tom’s voice, still stern, reassuring him that John was safe and cared for. Little by little, Grey let him in, his sobs slowing and calming though they didn’t cease altogether. Quite beyond his control—not that he cared at this point—Grey’s hips twitched, rutting rather uselessly into the table. The underside of it was cool against his cockstand and thoroughly unsatisfying. 

“Tom,” he whined as Tom’s fingers disappeared.

“I’ve got you, John,” Tom said, laying his hands on Grey’s hips and pushing the oil-slicked head of his prick where his fingers had just been. He eased himself in, then asked, “Gentle or rough? How do you need it?”

“Rough,” Grey said. The first time that Tom had fucked him and been so gentle. It had been wonderful and what they both needed in that moment. But Tom was right, Grey needed the wildness out of his system. “Rough as you can.”

“Very good, Me Lord.” Tom’s hands were strong and he gripped Grey’s hips hard, pressing bruises into the flesh with his fingertips. 

With only a few slow strokes into him to let Grey adjust, Tom picked up the pace, pounding into him over and over and over so hard that the edge of the table dug into his legs. Grey’s hard and neglected prick slapped against the underside of the table. Harder and harder and deeper and with more and more brutality. With some subtle shift of his angle, Tom found the place inside of him that set off little cannon blasts through Grey’s body. The raw flesh of his arse protested every thrust, every last hair that so much as brushed his skin. 

"Is this what you wanted?" Tom leaned over Grey, his body cool over John's heated skin. "Is this what you wanted that man to do to you?" 

Grey couldn't work his mouth to form words and he hesitated. Apparently this displeased Tom, and he grabbed a handful of Grey’s hair and tugged his head back. It stretched Grey’s throat and made his panting, sobbing breaths sound desperate and strained to his own ears.

“I’d like an answer, John.” Tom kept up his grueling rhythm, his voice breathy and strained with effort. He tightened his fingers in Grey's hair.

"It is," Grey managed. It was precisely what he'd gone looking for at Lavender House. To be used and abused in that place where he'd first laid eyes on Percy, penance for the role he'd played in his step brother's downfall. What lies he survived under… Grey couldn't let himself forget his truth because then who else would know?

"This is what you think you deserve, is that it?” Tom released Grey’s hair and he let his head fall forward over the edge of the table again. He dug his fingers into Grey’s hips, hard enough to bruise. Tom fucked him gloriously harder, the edge of the table painful in the bend of Grey’s hips. 

Grey wanted to cry out, to shout or scream, but his jaw was tight, teeth gritted against the rough treatment. Distantly he thought he was still crying, but he was out of energy for it. Tom had purged the greater quantity of despair from his heart and mind. It was thrilling to be tied to this table, arse raw from the riding crop and Tom's brutal pace. It satisfied that self destructive craving for pain and peril, but he was safe with Tom.

"Your worth as a man is so much more than use and abuse, John." The cadence of Tom’s voice had shifted. It was rough from exertion, but it was so much more than pretty words. Tom truly believed what he said.

"Tom," Grey said, just to feel the man's name on his lips again. His neglected cock was heavy and desperate under the table. Too much more of this and John would spill without so much as a touch.

"John—" Tom's rhythm faltered but he persisted, gasping for breath. "We had an agreement. You should have come to me first. _John!"_

Finally—and yet much too soon—Tom came to a stop, draping himself, trembling over Grey's back, careful not to lay on his crossed arms. 

Grey whimpered and whined. "Please touch me. Oh God. Christ, Tom, please. Please let me finish."

Tom was still inside of him when he snaked his arm around John's legs and under the table, wrapping his warm fingers around Grey's prick.

Grey let out a groan that was as much relief as it was desperate arousal. He tried to rut into Tom's fist but couldn't between the ropes holding him and Tom pinning him with his own body. At any rate, it didn't take long, just a few firm strokes of Tom's hand and Grey spilled onto the floor, crying out an incoherent mixture of wordless shouts and Tom's name.

"There we are," Tom said. He let go of Grey's cock and straightened, pulling himself out of him. He smacked Grey's burning arse cheek once with the flat of his hand, the wretched sting of it pure agony. "Are you alright, Me Lord?" Tom circled around the table and crouched down so he could look Grey in the eye. He stroked John's hair and face, mopping the sweat from his brow with a soft cloth. John's tears though, he wiped clean with his thumbs. 

Grey nodded weakly, weeping. He wept for Percy, for himself. For Tom's love of him, from the relief that he did, in fact manage to satiate his particular appetite.

"Can you manage while I untie you? Do I need to cut the ropes?"

For an instant, panic shot through Grey along with a sharp pain in his chest—the shrapnel devilling him again—and he tensed. But Tom's voice was so steady, his youthful face so calm and composed, that John immediately settled, stopping his thrashing before it began. With an effort, he took deep breaths, getting himself back under control, and he shook his head. "No. No, I can manage."

Tom pressed a brief kiss to John's forehead and stood, disappearing from sight. But Grey could hear him moving quietly about nearby, felt the confident touch of his hands working open the knots. First the rope binding his torso to the table. A chill fell hard over him and Grey did his best to stay still while Tom freed his legs, tried to suppress the shivering. 

"I know you're cold, Me Lord." Once Grey's legs were untied, Tom helped him to stand with a surprisingly strong arm around his middle. 

An ache jabbed in his back and John winced, pressing his lips tight together to hold in a pained whimper.

"I've got you. You're alright," Tom whispered. In a few more seconds, he was pulling the final rope loose and helping Grey stretch out his arms. He massaged John's arms from shoulder to wrist, his touch tender and kind. "Have I damaged you?"

Grey shook his head, shivering and trembling with cold and exhaustion. "No, Tom. Nothing broken." He meant that nothing was _physically_ broken, the literal answer to Tom's question. But Tom looked up and met his gaze, studying Grey with those dark, intelligent eyes that saw everything. There was _so very much_ in that look. Watching Tom watching him, Lord John got the distinct impression that Tom was assessing how many pieces of Grey were left to pick up. 

That's how it would be then, was it? That Tom would stitch back together all the tears and rents in Grey. Their agreement took on a life of its own in his mind. All John had to do was ask, to show Tom the rip, and Tom would go right to work, mending it. And when the stitches couldn't be concealed, he'd turn it into some lovely embellishment. Tom could do that, couldn't he? Reveal the potential for beauty in the flaws of things. Things broke, seams ripped, buttons came loose. But with Tom's care and attention, making it better and stronger than it was before, the worth of those things wasn't merely salvaged, but increased.

The worth of this man was immeasurable. 

For the first time in days, Grey didn't dread the passing of one moment to the next. He leaned in and brushed his lips against Tom's, feather light and sweet, a question. 

Tom answered. He kissed Grey back, and it said, _Yes. Yes, I love you. Frayed ends and all._

Grey could have wept for it, to realize that, despite the pain and grief for Percy, there were enough pieces of his battered heart still left to love again. But he was out of tears, his eyes swollen and dry, throat raw. His entire body felt wrung out and twisted tight, save for the warmth of Tom's mouth on his, the calm places where Tom's gentle hands touched his bare skin. 

There was a hint of satisfaction sparkling in Tom's eyes when they separated, a pleased curve to his lips that wasn't there before. "Let's put you to bed, Me Lord." 

Tom gingerly massaged oil into the welts from the riding crop, dabbed a bit of some salve to the burn on John's thigh. He examined every inch of him, lavishing his body with kindness. At last, Tom helped Grey into his nightshirt and tucked him into the bed, pulling the quilts over him. Grey watched him move about the room from under his heavy-lidded eyes. Appreciated the way Tom's body looked when he pulled his own shirt on over his head. Smirked to himself when he got a glimpse of Tom's arse from under said shirt as he stooped to build up the fire. He stared at Tom's slender hands while he coiled up his ropes and bundled them up neatly in the cloth. Then Tom put out the lamps and slid into Grey's bed next to him.

Tom opened his arms and Grey laid his head on his chest, let Tom wrap him in his embrace. "Thank you, Tom," Grey murmured. "For bringing me back from that place." He meant Lavender House. And the dark place that had driven him there.

With a sleepy sigh, Tom rested his cheek against the top of Grey's head and tightened his hold on him. "Always, Me Lord."


End file.
